Uchiha Sasuke had changed a lot.
His classmates at the Ninja Academy were the first to feel it.
The most obvious was the internal change.
The old Sasuke, though he often wore a stern expression and disliked interacting with others, always carried a hint of the awkwardness and pride befitting a child.
When he finished his assignments with the top grade, the corners of his mouth would unconsciously curl up. When he was chased by the girls, his ears would quietly turn red.
But now, everything was different.
That bloody night had drained all the light and warmth from his body.
The Sasuke of today, just standing there, gave people a strange sense of dead silence.
...
"Hey, Sakura, don't you think... Sasuke-kun has become a little scary?" During the lunch break, Yamanaka Ino, who was having lunch with Haruno Sakura, poked at a rice ball with her chopsticks and suddenly uttered this sentence.
Sakura's chewing slowed down upon hearing this, and she followed Ino's gaze.
Under a tree at the edge of the field, Uchiha Sasuke was sitting cross-legged, a sheathed longsword lying across his lap.
Sasuke didn't seem any different from usual, at least in her eyes. He still had that same aloof look.
"Scary?" Sakura frowned, not agreeing with the word. "How could he be? Ino, don't talk nonsense."
"But, he just feels different."
Ino puffed out her cheeks, trying to organize her words. "The old Sasuke-kun was cool too, and didn't talk much, but it felt like he was still with us."
"That's because he's been through pain we can't even imagine."
Sakura's voice lowered, thick with pity. "Ino, think about it. If one day, you came home and found the Yamanaka Flower Shop was gone, and your mom and dad were also... what would you do?"
Ino's face instantly turned pale. Just the thought of such a scene made tears well up in her eyes.
"I don't know..."
"So, the way Sasuke-kun is now isn't scary."
Haruno Sakura looked at Sasuke's lonely figure, her tone firm. "He's just closed himself off. He's afraid of forming connections with people again, afraid of getting hurt again."
Ino nodded without speaking, but she didn't quite agree with this view. The feeling Sasuke gave her now was very strange.
"How about we go talk to him?"
Haruno Sakura looked at Ino with anticipation. "Even if he ignores us, just letting him know that someone still cares about him, wouldn't that make things a little better?"
Yamanaka Ino hesitated. "But, Sasuke-kun looks busy."
Ino's feeling was not wrong.
At this moment, Sasuke was sitting alone under the tree, like an isolated island, cut off from the entire world.
But in fact, it was Sasuke who had actively cut himself off from the world.
His consciousness had already sunk into his own spiritual world.
This was Jinzen.
A training method for a Soul Reaper to communicate with their own Zanpakutō.
In meditation, one resonates their spiritual power with the Zanpakutō to achieve the goal of conversing with it.
And being able to communicate with the blade is the first step for a Soul Reaper to release their Zanpakutō.
Only by learning the blade's name can one wield its true power.
But for the current Sasuke, this was more like a habit to pass the boring time.
Communication? It was no longer necessary.
Knowing the blade's name, achieving Shikai—this was the minimum standard for him to graduate from the Shino Academy.
In an environment like Squad 11, if you couldn't even take the first step of talking to your blade, you had no right to survive.
The reason he was still performing Jinzen was simply to block out the meaningless noise of the outside world and, incidentally, to wait for a certain unpunctual fellow.
"Hatake Kakashi..."
Sasuke's consciousness withdrew from his spiritual world. He opened his eyes, a flicker of annoyance crossing them.
He said nine in the morning.
It was now lunchtime.
Had he been stood up?
Or was this the "caliber" of a Konoha Jonin? To treat promises as nothing.
Just as his opinion of Kakashi dropped another notch, two figures interrupted his thoughts.
"Sasuke-kun!"
It was Haruno Sakura. She was pulling a hesitant Yamanaka Ino, walking straight over, a self-righteous, concerned smile on her face. "It's so lonely here by yourself. Let's have lunch together, okay?"
Sasuke didn't even lift an eyelid. The Zanpakutō on his lap exuded a cold aura.
"Get lost."
Haruno Sakura's smile froze on her face, but she quickly pulled herself together and took another step forward.
"Sasuke-kun, I know you're sad, but you can't keep shutting yourself away like this. We're comrades..."
"Sakura, let's just go..." Ino, beside her, tugged at the corner of her clothes in a small voice. She could clearly feel the air around them getting colder; it wasn't her imagination.
"No!" Sakura stubbornly shook off Ino's hand. "I have to help him get out of this!"
"I'll say this one last time. Disappear from my sight," Sasuke finally looked up.
"Why can't you just understand my good intentions!" Sakura was inexplicably angered and was about to step forward to argue.
"How troublesome..."
Sasuke lost his patience.
He stood up abruptly, raised his left hand, and brought his index and middle fingers together. A pure spiritual power began to gather.
"Bakudō #4..."
"Now, now, raising a hand against a girl at school isn't something to be proud of, you know."
Just then, a hand reached out from behind him and gently pressed down on his raised wrist.
A lazy voice sounded.
"Using such harsh words to hurt a girl who cares about you will get you disliked," Kakashi gave the two frightened girls a reassuring smile.
Sasuke whipped his head around. Hatake Kakashi was standing behind him, smiling.
"Let go. Also, you're late," he spat out coldly, retracting the Kidō he was about to cast.
"Oh dear, my apologies."
Kakashi released his hand and scratched his head without any sincerity. "I was thinking so hard about how to teach my cute student in the future that I got a little carried away."
Sasuke let out a cold snort of unknown meaning and turned to walk out of the school.
Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino, left standing there, were still a bit shaken.
"My, my, what an honest child," Kakashi watched Sasuke's retreating back and shrugged helplessly. Then he turned to the two girls who were still stunned.
"Sorry, did he scare you? Sasuke... well, he's been through some bad things, so he's not quite used to being around people yet. Please bear with him."
Haruno Sakura's eyes were a little red. "Sasuke-kun, is he really okay?"
"He's fine," Kakashi said with a reassuring smile. "I'm here, after all. Alright, it's almost time for class. You two should head back too."
Sakura wanted to say more, but Ino pulled her away. They bowed hastily to Kakashi and quickly left.
After shooing the two little girls away, the smile on Kakashi's face slowly faded.
He looked in the direction Sasuke had gone, his expression becoming a little complex.
He had told Sasuke to wait for him at the Ninja Academy to observe how he currently interacted with his peers.
But from what he saw today, things didn't seem too optimistic.
The only saving grace was that when he raised his hand just now, the strange energy fluctuation was not aggressive.
"Honestly, you've given me quite a difficult problem, Lord Third," Kakashi muttered to himself, sighed, and with a flicker, he too disappeared from the spot.